FreakFaced
by Meimirigu
Summary: "Fall off a bridge! Fall-leap-jump-tumble-trip-skip-fall!" She yelled, the words spilling from her mouth. It was her fate to be unlucky, and his to break her facade.


_This is a sort of drabble/story trade thing that I did with the fabulous author known only as Sawahii._

_It just so happened that I was able to convince her into swapping a sort of prompt with me, and she said something like, "write a story with kinda ten-faced Gumi but then stick Dell in there somewhere". I gave her a prompt as well, and we each spent an hour writing as much as we could with little to no thinking involved. __And so, this is my half of what happened._

_I went and reread it after my hour was up, but changed as little as possible since it was just a crazy practice kind of thing with barely any planning or thought. I would have liked to add an ending that sounded better or made more sense, or apply more of a setting since it's all very vague, but I suppose I'll leave it as is for now._

_I'll leave the rest to you. Review afterwards if you'd like._

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><p><strong>Freak-Faced<strong>

Personality disorders.

Bipolar Disorders.

No, none of those.

That's not what was wrong with her.

Gumi, well, she was just kind of eccentric, in more way than one.

Gumi was that socially awkward girl who talked a little funny. The one that everyone knew of but nobody _really _knew, the one who everyone was kind of friendly with but not best friends. Gumi wasn't an outcast, but she didn't fit in. She was the last piece of the puzzle, but she didn't fit. She wasn't worthless, in fact she was very useful and good at many things, but problems just never worked out for her.

Life, fate, it was not in her favor.

So she coped.

But since there was nothing mentally wrong with her – she was just unlucky – she coped by pretending there was something wrong.

She wrote her lowercase d's as b's and vice-versa. She mixed up her letters and purposely made lots of mistakes when typing things. She got her numbers all confused and did her math problems wrong. She mucked up all the formulas she knew so that they didn't even make relative sense. Everything was mixed, muddled, angry.

She was completely average and normal but she changed that. Instead of the normal, barely socially awkward girl who talked a little funny, she wanted attention. She put on masks to get it, and adopted imaginary problems.

She started lashing out and having mood swings, but it was really only acting. Still, it was damn good acting. She acted to cope with her utterly normal and boring self, so instead of boring and normal, she was a weird person who everyone knew of but _nobody_ was friendly with.

Nobody likes a weirdo.

Except the weirdos themselves.

So there was that boy, the one who smoked and really _did_ have some funky personality disorder that _wasn't_ self-diagnosed and purposefully afflicted. He was a true quirky turkey, a true weirdo. But hey, he did have friends, since he was pretty cool and got along with all the other weirdos.

But listen to this: Gumi, she wasn't authentic. The minute she met the boy (whose name was Dell, to not get him confused), he wrinkled his nose and stuck his chin up at her.

"You're faker than reality television. Drop the shit, it's unattractive."

Taken aback by this numbskull freak who saw through the cracks in her persona, she almost laughed. It takes a weirdo to see a weirdo, no matter how fake.

"Fall off a bridge." She said, half-smiling inelegantly.

But they met again, next day, same place similar time.

He was smoking another cigarette, scowling and grimacing up a storm, as if there was something so unattractive about the world that he had to hate it with his entire being.

"I told you to drop it. Still going, huh? Like a broken puppet. You're stupid. Prissy pseudo retard, you should get yourself checked out before your fake face becomes your real one."

"_Jump _off a bridge." She said, not smiling this time.

As much as she hated Dell, she gradually became attached to him. Like a hostage with Stockholm syndrome, she was his prisoner and grew more and more dependent on his snarky words. And also, over a few months, each time he told her to change and each time she told him to fall-jump-hop-leap-skip-tumble off of a bridge, he grew on her like mold in a moist corner.

And gradually she realized how much of a goner she would be if she really didn't drop her masks and costumes and facades.

As utterly and painfully normal as she was without the freak-persona, she realized how much she hurt others and herself by wearing it.

But still, she didn't drop it. She didn't drop it, she held onto it - clung to it as if it was the last breath she could take, as if it was the last water she could drink, like it was the last valuable thing that she had in her possession.

"I _told_ you to _drop _it. I should stop pestering you, since you don't even listen. Clueless bitch, learn to help yourself, would you?" He dropped his cigarette that day, and scuffed it into the ground with the heel of his leather shoe.

Honestly, he didn't think anything of the way that he told her to change her ways each day. He figured that she would listen eventually or maybe not, but what would happen would happen and that would be that. Fate is fate and it remains unchanged.

But he changed her more than he had realized.

"Fall off a bridge! Fall-leap-jump-tumble-trip-skip-fall! Die, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

Her mask.

Her mask!

This time, oh, this time, this day, this was a time when everything tumbled down on her like piles of trash upon people who horde it. It came tumbling-stumbling down onto her, and as a result, her fingertips lost their grip on her foundation.

Biting her lip, she flung herself at him. And she tried to beat him to a pulp, not even exaggerating. Obviously she didn't succeed, but upon this sudden release of emotion, everything fell out of her heart. The tiny cardboard box that held her emotions was so far inundated that it rocked and swung and tipped right over, everything it contained spilling on to the floor in a muddled heap.

Gumi's problems were spilled to Dell, the true-blue weirdo, and he sure was surprised. Yet, he wasn't angry. In fact, he was happy that he wouldn't have to bother her about her acting anymore. She dropped it.

She dropped everything.

There Gumi was - the girl who spoke kinda weird and was naturally sort-of-awkward, the one who had worn a series of masks to change what she looked like - standing here with her head leaning against Dell's chest and tears falling off of her lashes. Her hands grasped his shirt, wrinkling it and twisting the fabric into knots. She sobbed like a child, whimpering and shaking her head and throwing a fit until it was dark out and she was too tired to hold on. Dell clung to her the whole time, cradling her as if she really was a child. He stood there for at least an hour, listening to Gumi mumble her problems through water-logged sobs. He didn't move an inch, and was uncharacteristically calm and steady.

Dell held her until she stopped crying.

Even though the couple barely knew each other and only exchanged a sentence or two every day, they had gotten to know one another through insults and angry words. They didn't even know each other's full names, but they knew that they were now bound to be together whether that was in a romantic relationship or a friendship or some sort of infinite rivalry.

Once she stopped crying, Gumi finally looked Dell sharply in the eye, her expression flashing with mixed emotions of rage and determination and newfound admiration.

She backed away from him, he let her go.

"I'll see you tomorrow. You better be here. If you actually jump-leap-fall off of a bridge, I'll never forgive you. You got that, douchebag?" This was the most she had ever said to him.

He nodded, and for the first time, let himself smile at her.

"I'll be here, smoking and burning up my lungs as usual. I'll see you tomorrow, hopefully without your fake face, right?"

She nodded.

They had lots more to talk about than insults and their hatred for one another.

They had to talk about what they would do tomorrow.


End file.
